An Ever-fixéd MarkPsalm 23; I Corinthians 13The Story Theme: From
Shepherd to KingText:And now faith, hope, and love abide,
these three;and the greatest of these is love—I Corinthians 13:13IntroductionIn a well-adjusted American
family, I suspect there is an equal distribution of love and affection among
all the family members. In my immediate family a few years ago, apparently
there was a disconcerting exception.The
distribution of love at that time was heavily weighted in favor of the household
rabbit.Nearly fifteen years ago, we
acquired a new family member in the form of a Norwegian dwarf rabbit: three and
one-half pounds of fluffy grey fur.We
called him Fiver, named after the
little clairvoyant rabbit in the book titled Watership Down.When our two
children lived at home and we were a family of four, each of us stroked Fiver,
cuddled him, babied him, petted him, held him, brushed him, fed him, and
confided our deepest secrets to him when no one else was around.For virtually twelve years he had the run of
the house twice daily, dashing about the room as if chased by ghosts, often
leaping in the air with a helicopter spin.He was most certainly a bona fide member of our family, and, believe me!
he had more love in those twelve years of his life than the rest of us could
possibly ever hope to experience in our lifetime.When Is Human Love Not Enough?During one of my reflective
moments during those years—while watching Fiver in his cage—I was struck by a
rather poignant question: When is human
love not enough?It occurred to me
that in spite of all the love and affection the four of us gave him, Fiver might
simply want another bunny with whom to snuggle and talk about the meaning of
life.When I mentioned this to my wife
Beth, she readily pointed out that Fiver is on the other end of the food chain
and probably doesn’t deal with ponderous issues, such as meaning and purpose of
existence; indeed, she continued, he probably doesn’t experience any
existential dread and furthermore may have little or no interest in discussing
these concerns with another rabbit – male or female – or with anybody else for
that matter.Of course, I saw through her
argument right away and informed her that this was simply her rationale to keep
Fiver all to herself and never have to share him with another rabbit.Ultimately I had to give Beth
the benefit of the doubt, however, and acknowledge the truth in what she
contended.Yet I hold to the original
question and still subscribe to its validity: When is human love not enough?For us as well, at this end
of the food chain, it stands as a crucial question.When is human love not enough for you or for
me?When is human love not enough for our
neighborhood, our community, our nation, or our world?The Superior, Abiding QualityIn our scripture reading for
today, the Apostle Paul comes across as unequivocally counter-cultural.He both advocates and perpetuates the radical
gospel of love instituted and inaugurated by Jesus of Nazareth.This gospel of love stands in stark contrast
to a cultural context in which hatred, violence, persecution, oppression,
bullyism, arrogance, and self-aggrandizement composed the common fabric of the
day.Unmistakably asserted in this ‘love-hymn’
is Paul’s description of the superior and
critical demands of love. [i]
The apostle adopted an unpopular theological posture that was antithetical to
the values of many people in the church at Corinth.Love is superior, he insisted, to what you
highly regard as speaking in tongues.Love is superior to what you revere as prophecy.Love is superior to your vastly venerated
knowledge.Love is superior even to the
faith you possess and cherish.In point
of fact, according to Paul, of all the gifts of the Spirit, there are only
three with abiding qualities that have a
firm purchase on eternal truths: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these
is love. [ii]Without love—this radical quality of
Christian being—all other gifts of the Spirit are noisy gongs or clanging cymbals, reverberating echoes of emptiness
in a cavernous cave of cacophony.No
equivocation here!Paul is direct, candid
and poignant with the Corinthians because the Christians at the Church of
Corinth—awash in controversy, twisted with personal self-interest, saturated
with self-righteousness—couldn’t seem to get it right.This thing called love was so enigmatic and elusive.There is a
contemporaneity—that is, a current quality—about the ‘love-hymn’ of
Paul’s.Its poignancy seems relevant to
our generation as well since, admittedly, there are times when we can’t seem to
get it right . . . can’t get it right at the source, at the very heart of the
matter.Love: so enigmatic, so
elusive.A Disquieting DialogueOne of the most profound,
nagging, and disquieting dialogues in all of literature occurs in D.H.
Lawrence’s novel Women in Love.The scene is set by a large mill-pond,
where Rupert Birkin is working on the bank of the pond, sawing and
hammering.He had been ill and now was very thin and hollow, with as ghastly look
in his face.Ursula Brangwen
approaches Birkin, and within a few moments into the conversation Ursula
observed:Ursula: You have been ill, haven’t you?Birkin: Yes.Ursula: Has it made you frightened?Birkin: What of?Ursula: It is frightening to be very ill, isn’t it?Birkin:It isn’t pleasant.Whether one is really afraid of death or not,
I have never decided.In one mood, not a
bit, in another, very much.Ursula: But doesn’t it make you feel ashamed?I think it makes one so ashamed, to be
ill—illness is so terribly humiliating, don’t you think?Birkin: May-be.Though one
knows all the time one’s life isn’t really right, at the source.That’s the humiliation. I don’t see that the
illness counts so much, after that.One
is ill because one doesn’t live properly—can’t.It’s the failure to live that
makes one ill, and humiliates one.Ursula: But do you fail to live?Birkin: Why, yes—I don’t make much success of my days.. . .it infuriates me that I
can’t get (it) right, at the really growing part of me.I feel all tangled and messed up, and I can’t get straight anyhow.I don’t know what really to do.One
must do something somewhere.Ursula:Why should you always be doing?It is so plebeian.I think it is much better to be really
patrician, and to do nothing but just be oneself, like a walking flower.Birkin:I quite agree, if one has burst
into blossom.But I can’t get my flower
to blossom anyhow. . . . I’m not right . . . my only rightness lies in the fact
that I know it.I detest what I am,
outwardly.I loathe myself as a human
being.Humanity is a huge aggregate lie
. . . humanity is a tree of lies.And
they say that love is the greatest thing; they persist in saying this, the foul
liars, and just look at what they do!Look at all the millions of people who repeat every minute that love is
the greatest, and charity is the greatest—and see what they are doing all the
time.By their works ye shall know them,
for the dirty liars and cowards, who daren’t stand by their own actions, much
less their own words . . . if what they say were true, then they couldn’t help
fulfilling it . . . if what we want is hate, let us have at it—death, murder,
torture, violent destruction—let us have it; but not in the name of love.
[iii]Let
me put the question to you directly!When Paul claims that the greatest of these is love, is he lying to
us?Is love merely a contrived illusion
that assists us in coping with the muck that we wade through every day.Is love simply a romanticized defense
mechanism shaped into an ideal far beyond our reach, and anodyne fantasy that
helps us cope with bad marriages, a spate of unemployment or a miserable job
and a lousy supervisor, financial disaster and a plummeting market, perpetually
poor self-esteem, interminable self-devouring anger or crippling resentment,
the aggravating aging process, an all-consuming doubt, a terrifying terminal
illness, or a convulsing fear of death?The
greatest of these is love, but is love an illusion?Is love a camouflage designed to console us
when we have made a pretty mess of life?Is love after all only a disguise for despair, disillusionment,
degradation, dejection, a disgusting diminuendo into an ultimate eternal
silence?Human love: so enigmatic, so
elusive, so insufficient, so misunderstood, so mistaken!For
Rupert Birkin, it is the failure to live that makes one ill, and humiliates
one.Given the full context of his
dialogue with Ursula Brangwen, it is the failure to live with authentic love that makes one ill, that humiliates him.I’ll buy that!I quite agree!Often
I have loved intently, but seldom have I loved well.Often
I have loved passionately, but seldom have I loved well.Often
I have loved many, but seldom have I loved many well.Often
I have loved humanity, but seldom have I loved humanity well.Often
I have loved rhetorically, but seldom have I loved sacrificially.Often
I have loved poetically, but seldom have I loved authentically.Don’t
ask me for specifics, but my human love has not always been kind.Don’t
ask me time and place, but my human love has not always been patient.Don’t
ask me where or when, but my human love at times has been arrogant and rude,
has been irritable and resentful, insisting on my own way.Don’t
ask me which relationships, but at times my human love rejoiced in another’s
wrong and failed to rejoice at another’s right.In point of fact, my human love has never been enough.Has
human love been enough for you, or has it always been—at least in part—alloyed:
self-serving, self-centered, self-aggrandizing?. . .and never enough?On
the initial reading of the ‘love-hymn,’ it may appear that what Paul is
encouraging the Corinthians to do is to create and cultivate their own human
love for one another.But not so!Paul here, in no uncertain terms, is calling
for their authentic imitation of transcending love, of the divine love that
resides with them in the spirit of Jesus Christ: God in their midst.Love that Never EndsThe
apostle is calling for the Corinthians to get it right, at the Source, to get
it right at the growing part of them.The apostle is calling for them to reflect a transcending love that
lifts them above the controversy and above their self-righteousness, a transcending
love that bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things, a transcending love that looks on tempests and is never shaken, [iv]a
transcending love that reflects the love of Christ that never ends.By the same token, the Apostle Paul is
calling for us to recognize that it is our failure to live with an authentic,
transcending love that makes us ill, that humiliates us, that twists and
distorts our culture into a hideous manifestation of violence and destruction.I
have mentioned the legendary Thomas Moore before.Mention of him bears repeating in this
particular context.According to legend,
Thomas Moore, the renowned Irish poet of the nineteenth century, returned from
an extended business trip only to discover the family doctor leaving his
house.As they met on Moore’s front
porch, the physician sadly reported that Moore’s beautiful young wife had
contracted small pox, and her face was pitifully scarred from the disease.Moore left the doctor and ascended the stairs
to their bedroom, encased in darkness.He approached the curtains to pull the drapes aside, when his wife
stopped him with an insistent “No, Thomas!Never look on this hideous face ever again.”Moore returned to the living room, sat at the
pianoforte and composed a song.When he
had finished, he ascended the stairs a second time, drew back the drapes, approached
the bed, and sang to his wife:Believe
me, if all those endearing young charmsWhich I
gaze on so fondly today,Were to change by tomorrow and
fleet in my arms,Like fairy gifts fading away,Thou would’st still be adored as
this moment thou art,Let thy loveliness fade as it
will,And around the dear ruin each
wish of my heartWould entwine itself verdantly
still. [v]Aye!Such a transcending love!Such a love that never ends!There are times when human love is not
enough.We are ever challenged to look
beneath the veneer of common life, and with the eyes of a transcending love to
see that deep inside everyone we meet, in
everyone we know, there is something valuable, worth listening to, worthy of
our trust, and sacred to our touch. [vi]ConclusionLet me not to the marriage of true
minds Admit impediments.Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration
finds Or bends with the remover to
remove.O, no!It is an ever-fixéd markThat looks on tempests and is
never shaken . . . [vii]Authentic
love.It is an ever-fixéd mark.Would
that I—in the months we have left together—would that I could love you
authentically with a transcending love like that!g g gNotes[i]Phrase from
the Oxford Bible Commentary, I
Corinthians, John Barclay, p. 1128[ii]Ibid.[iii]D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love, pp. 117-119[iv]Line from
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116[v]Thomas Moore, Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young
Charms, stanza 1, from Irish Melodies[1807-1834][vi]From McMahon
and Campbell, Please Touch: “We do
come to believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us
something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust,and
sacred to our touch.”[vii] William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116, lines 1-6